Temporary exile

You, Me and OpenID

Feb 11th, 2007

It doesn’t take much to get me excited. Even so, I’m quite jazzed
over this whole concept of OpenID. Basically
it’s a way for websites and services to authenticate your identity
in a secure, flexible and decentralized way. Unlike previous
attempts at single sign on
systems, OpenID is a spec for
getting the job done instead of a service that ties you to a single
entity. OpenID even specifies that you, the user, should be able to
decide who the site you are logging into asks for your credentials
and if the site can even trust them. The cool parts are that you
only need to remember one password and you have complete control
over the whole process. With huge a sites like
Wikipedia,
Technorati and
LiveJournal along with major projects
like Drupal and
WordPress adding support for OpenID, it’s
going to be super easy to log in almost anywhere. There is even
talk of
Windows Vista
and
AOL
getting on the OpenID bandwagon. It’s kind of a tough concept to
understand and it took me a few tries to figure out how it works
underneath. These links should give you a headstart:
- A Brief

[Introduction to OpenID](http://www.openidenabled.com/openid/about-openid)

If this takes off like it should, it will make everyone’s lives
easier. Seriously, who wants to have a different login for each
website they have an account at? I also read that
Firefox 3
will have integrated OpenID support. Neat eh?